


The Mermaids Singing

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, post 3x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6212500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mermaids and reunions.</p>
<p>(Uh, how many Jack-goes-to-London stories have I written now? A lot. What's one more, right?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mermaids Singing

**Author's Note:**

> So, confession time. This--or a very early, shockingly bad version of this--was the first Miss Fisher fic I started to write, months and months ago now. It suddenly popped into my head again last night, as I will apparently do anything to avoid Fics of Importance, and hopefully the new framing is enough of an improvement to be enjoyable.
> 
> Title and quotation from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which is so terribly original of me. Ha!

Jack looked at the townhouse, music coming through the windows and partygoers spilling out of the door into the sliver of light cast upon the stairs. He debated returning to the hotel to get some sleep; he hadn’t expected a party. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, in truth. Certainly not for Miss Fisher to quietly while away a Saturday night because he wasn’t around, and yet he had arrived at her place without forewarning and this was the cost. It was preferable to finding her out, at least. He trotted up the few stairs and through the open door, none of the guests objecting to a new arrival.

He followed the loudest noises, certain he would find Phryne in the midst of it all, and found himself in a parlour that looked nothing like Wardlow and yet still felt inexplicably like home. Phryne stood in the middle of a large group, retelling her time as the Miraculous Mermaid. Jack moved towards one of the walls and watched her in profile for several minutes, drinking in the sight of her animated motions after two months apart. Oh, he was a sentimental fool.

She had just gotten to the part where Eva Callahan had stolen her lockpick as the lid closed on the tank and was giving a very harrowing version of her attempts not to drown.

“Thankfully,” she said, tossing her head, “our murderer showed a distinct lack of imagination, and I had hidden away several lockpicks about my person!”

Her audience laughed in appreciation.

“You failed to mention the poor police officer that nearly smashed the tank with an axe,” Jack said dryly, pushing off from the wall and moving towards the group.

She stiffened, just for a moment, and Jack wished he had gone back to his hotel after all, shown up on Monday as arranged; then she turned to face him and _smiled_. A soft, happy smile and a hastily exhaled “Jack!”, a greeting he had dreamt about for weeks and was somehow more than he could have imagined.

“I thought perhaps the hero of the moment would prefer to tell it himself,” she said, never one to be surprised for long. She moved through the crowd to him, stopping just short of him. “You’re late.”

“I’m two days early.”

She laughed, moved to his side and hooked her arm in his. “Then perhaps it just feels as if you are late.”

“Not too late?” Jack asked quietly.

“Never,” she said, and while he knew there were guests watching this strange interaction he found he did not care. Phryne seemed utterly oblivious to them.

Jack reached out to touch the swallow pin on her scarf, a glint of blue amongst the rustic browns and auburns.

“Not quite your usual jewels,” he said lightly.

“Yes, well, there was only so much room on the plane. I only brought the important things. A swallow pin, a young boy’s tin badge….”

“Buffalo Bill would be jealous,” he said, chuckling.

One of the partygoers coughed, clearly expecting introductions to be made. Phryne started, then smiled wider.

“Everyone, this is Inspector Robinson, the only competent police officer in Melbourne.”

“Miss Fisher!”

“And the only one who could manage to sound quite so offended by the statement,” she added. “But if he insists, I’ll say that he is the _most_ competent police officer in Melbourne, and not specify how many other contenders there may or may not be for that title.”

He was the subject of several minutes discussion, a mysterious new arrival that had surprised their host so thoroughly; when the hullabaloo had abated, Phryne looked around the room, then tugged him lightly towards the fireplace. On the way she grabbed a tumbler of whiskey and handed it to him.

“Wait right there, Jack. Two minutes.”

He watched in silent amusement as she rather unceremoniously evicted a good fifty people from her house in under five minutes. Several grumbled, and several more made very precise instructions about what Phryne should do with that ‘delightful Antipodean gentleman’ that would have made him blush if a year of Phryne’s acquaintance hadn’t beaten the impulse out of him.

When it was done she closed the parlour doors and joined him at the mantelpiece, taking a sip of her own whiskey and looking at him so intently he could almost forget that he was thousands of miles from Melbourne; nothing felt more like home than the look in her eyes as she regarded him over a glass, and he didn’t know when it had happened.

“Your stint as a mermaid seems to have made you a roaring success,” he said eventually.

“What I failed to mention was that I had nightmares for weeks afterwards,” Phryne replied, giving a shudder that was at least partially pretense; he moved closer anyway, laying a hand against the bare skin of her arm. “I was floating, warm and content, on still water and then... I was suddenly being dragged beneath these enormous waves, and I knew that if I just stopped fighting it I would become a mermaid. And oh, that seemed so lovely.”

She took another sip of her drink and sighed.

“Did you?”

She shook her head.

“I couldn’t stop fighting it, because if I was wrong I’d _drown_ ,” she explained, setting her glass on the mantel. “I could feel the water in my lungs and see the sun growing dimmer as I went down. It felt so real, I’d wake up and be unable to scream.”

She shuddered sincerely then, the playfulness gone, and Jack moved his hand to her waist and pulled her close.

“And now?”

“And now,” she breathed. “And now… I rather think that I’ve transformed regardless of my intentions, and all I can do is learn to swim.”

Her lips were parted, her eyes dark and dangerous and full of promise, her breath warm against his skin, the scent of her perfume filling the space between them until he leaned in even closer.

“ _We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown,_ ” he murmured. “ _Till human voices wake us, and we drown._ ”

Her arched eyebrow told him that it was not, perhaps, his most desirably on point quotation.

"It's a miracle I can remember my name when you look at me like that," he said wryly, and she smiled.

“I fully intend to do more than look,” she teased, reaching out to take his drink and setting it aside. “Just as soon as I get you out of this suit.”

They were no more than a hair’s breadth apart when they heard a knock at the door.

“Where...where’s…?” slurred a drunken voice from the hall.

Jack snorted quietly. Of course; clearly a guest had gone unnoticed. He stepped back, timing wrong as always.

“Human voices,” he said, shaking his head ruefully; it was almost comical.

"I didn't hear a thing," she whispered, closing the distance between them again. "You'll find that I have very selective hearing."

"And here I thought that only applied to crime scenes," he managed to choke out.

Her hand was on his tie, loosening it; then she nuzzled her cheek, soft and smelling of powder, against his and gave a low hum as she whispered into his ear.

“Come to bed, Jack.”

He had fantasised about this moment for months, uncertain how it would play out; he had assumed, in the beginning, that one night their banter would reach the logical conclusion, as inevitable as the rise and set of the sun. Then there had been a dinner invitation and intentions undeclared but simmering below the surface until it seemed every interaction carried a multitude of meanings and he thought it might be deliberate after all.

In the end it was so simple, an invitation extended and accepted with nothing more than a tilt of his head, her hand fitting so neatly in his as she led him up the stairs, the rustle of silk against wool, the elegant arch of her neck, their mingled scents left on the sheets. And in the afterglow--the silken tickle of her hair against his chest, the heat of skin against skin, the feeling of utter contentment--Jack dreamt of mermaids. 


End file.
